The hardest part, for me, of being a “writer” is trying to figure out whether or not I’m being lazy.

For the most part, I can’t actually be emitting words on a given topic for eight hours straight. I can rarely manage more than two or three hours on a topic in a single “pass”. I get burned out…

But I have never been able to tell whether that’s because there’s some essential difficulty under the level of my conscious mind, or whether it’s because I’m lazy.

By most accounts I write pretty fast – figure around 1000-2000 words an hour in most cases. But it’s hard for me to do more than about 1500 words at a sitting, without some kind of input. I can read and respond on message boards for as long as I want; I never seem to tire. It’s when I’m trying to make my own points, starting from scratch, that I seem to be unable to keep going until something else gives me more input, more ideas…

I used to wonder why my spouse would say “I’m writing” when he spent an afternoon rewatching an old anime. I don’t wonder anymore.